Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.

Arsenal’s move to Highbury has been covered in detail on this site – but I am returning to this topic now and pulling the articles we have published on this together because a member of Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association has just made available a unique, and previously unpublished, set of photos showing the end of Highbury as a football ground.

The pictures taken from our colleague’s nearby house represent an extraordinary record of the demolition of the ground that had been home to the club from 1913. The link to the portfolio of photographs is given at the end, but first, in the hope that you have a moment to spare, here is a quick run down of the articles that relate to the move to Highbury, that we have published as part of the on-going series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal. Sadly we don’t have pictures of the evolution of the ground to which we have the copyright, but I think this is the most complete record there is of the way the move to Highbury took place and indeed some new analyses as to why Norris chose Highbury.

I have added a few brief notes on particular issues that are covered in some of the articles, particularly where they involve findings that have added to or even overturned previous standard histories of the club.

But as I say, if you are here to see the previously unseen pictures of the end of Highbury just scroll down to the end.

With Woolwich Arsenal’s first chairman now returned to the club to work alongside Henry Norris, Arsenal prepared the groundwork for the move by having a director elected onto the Football League’s most important committee.

Why exactly did Arsenal decide on Highbury as opposed to anywhere else? I’m not sure that any of the many previous articles on this subject have fully answered the question, largely because they have focused on one issue: the transport problems related to Plumstead. There was something much more important than that in Henry Norris’ mind at the time.

And protests were there many, but Henry Norris had planned the move well, and knew that while Clapton Orient, Tottenham Hotspur and the local gentry didn’t want Arsenal on their land, the local shopkeepers, tradesmen, restaurants, transport companies and public houses most certainly did.

The match fixing saga that dominated the football headlines in 1915 and which was ultimately a significant element in Arsenal’s election to the first division in 1919 actually began at the end of the 1911/12 season, a factor that is missed from the histories of the period.

The ground had been built in an enormous rush and as the article on Highbury opening shows, it simply wasn’t ready for the first match – although that match was indeed played at Highbury. But then one of the walls fell down.